Most governments operate a postal service. Why then should governments not provide bare bones email and video services? You have government agencies using Zoom and similar. The analogy would be discontinuing the USPS and sending official government post via a wholly unregulated Fedex. It's absurd.
Zoom and email are not natural monopolies.
Or maybe there just won't be any cat videos, because the state has decreed them unnecessary or even harmful? How about political messages, is the state going to allow those to be posted on its platform? There are bound to be a few that go against state policy...
You could argue that the same is true for broadcast TV, and I would 100% agree. The state has no business running or even funding public television.
Also remember that legitimate creators keep being demonetised for no reason because AI moderation has a brainfart and no human is in charge.
And then there's the clusterfuck around malicious copyright strikes made for bad faith reasons by non-owners.
With public infrastructure there's at least some nominal possibility of democratic accountability - not so much in the US, large parts of which are pathologically delusional about public infrastructure as a concept, but it should be an option in countries with saner and more reality-based policies.
"The gov't should pay for it" is not a solution to private problems.
Because US citizens would benefit? Preventing outsiders from incidentally benefiting isn't a constitutional mandate (yet).
Would you oppose an anti-pollution measure even though it would also provide cleaner air to neighbouring countries?
